


Shards

by lilaccoffee



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Psychopaths, Dark Character, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kidnapping, Murder, No Romance, Not A Fix-It, Torture, possible triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 12:56:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2025906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilaccoffee/pseuds/lilaccoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Locked up in a house on the hill, Ashton Irwin lives alone, where he has been ever since his family was murdered, all wrapped up in a feeling of being watched by the boy living next door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot stress enough that this fic is very, very dark. There is no romance, no happy ending, just a lot of heavy material. If you are triggered by anything tagged, I urge you not to read this. Again, this is a VERY creepy fic, so creepy that I have to put it in capitals.

The first feeling of being watched came when Ashton was seven. He was peeking out of his living room window, watching the family that was moving in the house next to him. They had a son, a few years younger than him and so small, teetering on his feet as his sister ran circles around him.

 

It was summer, meaning the windows were open, so Ashton could hear everything the family was saying. He picked up on names pretty quickly. The boy was Luke, and his sister was Lyn. He assumed it was short for Carolyn, because that's what his aunt's name was and people sometimes called her Lyn.

 

“Ooh, new family. New friends, Ash. New friends!”

 

His sister was peeking at the family with him within minutes. He should have known he'd never be able to keep this is a secret until summer ended and they'd have to go back to school with them. A part of him hoped, but reality dictated everything.

 

“That's Luke.” Ashton pointed to the tiny boy. He was slightly older than his sister. “And the girl is Carolyn, but their parents call her Lyn. She's Luke's sister.”

 

“I want to go meet them,” his sister said.

 

Ashton shook his head. “We can't do that.”

 

“Why not?” his sister questioned.

 

The young boy had turned around and he was staring at Ashton with this little smirk on his face. However, he waved and showed his mother, but he never shook that smirk.

 

“Go away, Lauren,” Ashton ordered his sister, pulling the curtains in front of his window and backing up. He could still feel the boy's eyes on him and his testy smirk.

 

/\/\/\

 

The second feeling came from when he was ten. The boy next door never went to school with Ashton in the three years, and when he asked his mother about it, she said the boy was probably home schooled.

 

The paramedics were loading a stretcher up with a body one evening. The boy's mother was holding onto her husband. They were both crying. The boy wasn't showing any emotion as he stood on the grass and watched the white sheet covering the body get soaked with blood.

 

Ashton had been woken up by the sound of screaming and sirens.

 

The living room light was on as he stared out the window at the mess across the Hemmings' lawn. He had learned there name the day Mrs. Hemmings came to introduce herself with her son Luke and her daughter Carolyn.

 

The more Ashton though about it, he realized that Carolyn wasn't on the lawn with her family. As the back of the ambulence was closed, the boy's mother slapped him across the cheek and lit a joint from her pocket. The boy's head whipped to the side, and when he saw Ashton, his smirk returned before he started to cry.

 

The morning news broadcasted that Carolyn Hemmings had been murdered between two and three-thirty AM.

 

/\/\/\

 

When Ashton was twelve, another Carolyn incident happened. This time, it was his father. Ashton found him in his backyard, flowers over his eyes and a metal stake through his chest. He was shirtless, and STOP WATCHING ME was written across his chest in black Sharpie. The smell was still in the air. A few seconds after, the door to the Hemmings' house was slammed shut.

 

/\/\/\

 

Ashton didn't stop watching. Not when his little brother was three and treated him like the only man he'd ever known. Which was true. Their father was murdered when Ashton's mother was eight months pregnant. The stress caused her to go into labour a month too soon. His brother almost didn't make it.

 

The boy caught Ashton staring one day. His brother was found the morning after, splattered on the ground underneath his bedroom window. He was shirtless, too. I SAID TO STOP WATCHING ME was written across his back in the same black Sharpie as with Ashton's dad.

 

Ashton still watched.

 

/\/\/\

 

His sister was next to go. She was left in her shirt and underwear, fence post stabbed through her stomach. Her body was still on the pole when Ashton went out to the garden to feed the rabbits. They we're all dead, too. There wasn't a message on his sister, but the dead animals spelled out STOP.

 

Ashton didn't.

 

/\/\/\

 

When he was eighteen, the boy's parents were killed. They were found in their beds, ice picks in their necks with their blood alcohol level at two percent. Nobody looked to Luke, but Ashton did, which was why his mother turned up dead the next day. IF YOU KEEP WATCHING, YOU'LL BE NEXT was written across her legs.

 

Ashton didn't look anymore, but Luke looked at him. Ashton could see his shadow passing by his living room window once every day at two oh six PM.

 

 

He makes sure he doesn't look.


	2. Chapter 2

The day Ashton decided to look was when he turned into an even bigger idiot that had his whole family murdered. 

It was two ten PM, four minutes after Luke went back into his house, when Ashton drew back the curtains covering his living room window and read the words on the pane. 

KNOCK KNOCK. HAVE YOU GOTTEN CURIOUS YET?

As quickly as he could, Ashton put the curtain back in place and sunk to the floor. When someone knocked at the door, he curled up and pressed his face into his knees and tried to hold his breath. 

“Ashton? It's Mrs. Woodsley. I have your groceries.”

That made him uncurl from his ball and go to the door. He snatched the bags from her and pressed the bills he knew he owed her into her palm. Within six months, he'd become accustomed to this.   
He got the same thing every week. 

“Thank you,” he managed before he pushed Mrs. Woodsley out the door and locked it. 

There was a tap at his living room window, then the sound of a marker squeeling. Ashton plastered himself against the wall for thirty minutes and didn't look at it for an hour. 

DID I SEE YOU LOOKING?

Luke had never come twice in one day. 

/\/\/\

On his ninteenth birthday, Ashton left his house for the first time in a year. It was only a trip to the gorcery store because Mrs. Woodsley had been murdered after Luke caught Ashton being curious the week before. I'VE WARNED YOU SIX TIMES, YOU DIE NEXT was written across her back in the black Sharpie Ashton had become used to. 

He didn't have a car, so he had to walk forty-five minutes to the store, and he could hear the banging of pots in Luke's house. He ran down the road as fast as he could. 

Finding the grocery store was another series of events, but Ashton had found it nearing an hour and twenty minutes. He grabbed a basket when he entered the store and begn wandering around the aisles, looking for the things he needed without trying to give away that he hadn't been in here for almost four hundred days. 

As he rounded the corner into the cereal aisle, he bumped into someone with a red flannel shirt and a grey beanie on his head. The guy's head was down, and Ashton was ready to string together apologies, but when the guy looked up, they got stuck in his throat. 

Luke smirked. “Funny seeing you here. I guess we have the same grocery day.”

Ashton dropped his basket on the ground and turned to walk out of the aisle, but Luke grabbed his arm and held on tight. He was strong. Strong enough to stab an ice pick through his parents necks. 

“Aw, don't leave.” Luke's tone was taunting. It sent chills down Ashton's spine. “We've only just started talking.”

“I should get home,” Ashton attempted. The lie was as silly to his own ears as Luke's. 

“Why? It's just you there. There's no rush, Ashton.” Luke ran a finger up the middle of his sternum. 

“No, really,” Ashton insisted. “It was nice to talk to you.”

Luke laughed darkly. “We both know that isn't true.”

Aston made quick movements to get to the front of the store, his basket long abandoned back where Luke was. When he made it out of the store, the sky seemed to spit open and it started to pour. Ashton spluttered and wiped rain off his face, moving to stand under the roof of the store. 

“I'll drive you home,” Luke stated. 

“I can walk,” Ashton disagreed. 

“In the rain?” Luke questioned. “Come on, it'll be fine. I'm harmless.”

Ashton snorted at that. He watched Luke carefully as he got into his car, putting on his seat belt and leaning as far away from him as he could. Luke chuckled at him as he started his car and backed out of the parking lot. 

“So,” he began. 

“Shut up,” Ashton snapped. “Don't talk to me. Just take me home.”

The smirk Luke wore when he was four returned to his face the objects out of the window started to blur together. Even though he tried not to, Ashton slipped into a light nap. 

/\/\/\

A sharp pain in his thigh and the sound of a door closing woke him up. He blinked his eyes open and went to rub them, only to discover that he was strapped down to a chair. His jeans were cut open to reveal a gash on his left thigh. Words written in Sharpie were scrawled around it. 

THAT'LL TEACH YOU TO BE STUPID. 

“Luke?” Ashton could feel the panic rising in his throat. “What the hell? Luke!” 

A deep laugh rang through a monitor in the corner of the room. IT'S YOUR TIME NOW was written on the wall in the familiar black Sharpie.


	3. Chapter 3

When Luke came back into the room, Ashton had dried tear tracks on his face and had tried everything he could to get out of the restraints. 

“Good to see that you're awake,” Luke said. 

He wrung his hands together and opened a cabinet, pulling out a pair of pliers. He advanced towards Ashton with that smirk on his face, eyes shining. 

“What are you doing?” Ashton demanded. “Get away from me!”

Luke just grinned. He liked to hear his victims scream. He was going to have fun tonight. He sighed in bliss when Ashton's scream pierced his ears. He looked at the fingernail trapped between the pliers, bringing it up to study the dripping blood. He wanted to hear that scream again. He wanted to see more blood. 

Luke dropped to his knees and pulled of Ashton's shoes and socks, aready holding the pliers in his right hand. Ashton's shrieking, trying to pull away, but Luke won't stop, reveling in the sceams he makes when he rips off the nail from Ashton's big toe. 

“Stop! Stop!”

Luke doesn't. He takes a deep breath to suck in the matalic scent of blood, tasting the air on his tongue with a smile. He drops the pliers and takes a pair of scissors from the closest, cutting Ashton's shirt open and off his body. He used the sharpest end to slash a small cut into the middle of Ashton's chest, smiling as he did so. Luke liked to watch him writhe in pain. 

Luke dropped the scissors to the ground, taking a moment to admire the way Ashton looked at this moment. His grin was crooked and his head was turned to the side, cocked in a position that allowed him to take in everything Ashton's body had to offer when it was being abused like this. Luke loved it. 

“Why?” Ashton squeaked out, rocking on the chair. His and restraints were never going to come loose, no matter how hard he tried. 

Luke's eyes glazed over. “Isn't that the question of the day?”

He backhanded Ashton across the face, anger growing inside of him as he thought of his childhood more and and more. He wanted to hurt somebody. 

Ashton was there. Luke took the scissors and stabbed them in Ashton's leg, then took them out and did it again, then threw them to the ground. He screamed at pulled at his hair. 

“Mum and Dad didn't want a boy.” His face contorted in anger. He threw the pliers at Ashton's stomach as hard as he could. “They didn't focus on me after Lyn was born, so I killed her. I just wanted them to notice me. They didn't notice me, only dressed me up like in her old clothes and called me Carolyn. I didn't want you to notice me, I wanted them. So I killed your dad, because I thought it would make you back off.”

He growls and slaps Ashton across the face again. 

“Luke.” Ashton's panting, face twisted up in pain. “Luke, stop, you're hurting me.”

“But you kept staring!” Luke erupts. “I killed your sister, and you still looked. I killed your mum and you still looked. I even murdered the woman who brought you food, and you still looked. And I killed my parents because I didn't want to be a girl anymore, I just wanted to be left alone.”

He scrapes his nails down Ashton's cheeks, leaving angry red marks, split open to reveal blood. Luke touches it, getting some on his finger and tasting it. 

“You didn't leave me alone, Ashton.” His eyes are blazing. “You have to be next. I wish that I could tell you that I don't want it to come to this, but I so do.”

Ashton closed his eyes as Luke brought out a gun, holding it up to his temple. 

Luke chuckled. “Oh, I'm not going to shoot you. That'd break that pattern, wouldn't it? I want to watch you suffer.”

Still, he shot Ashton in the hip, a spot that would kill him in a few hours when all he bled out. He wanted to make Ashton suffer. The ice pick was brought out next, the sharp tip pressed to his jugular. Ashton closed his eyes and braced for the pain. 

This is it, he thought. I'm going to die.

Then, he opened his eyes, looking straight into Luke's as he screamed.


End file.
